


Whose Hate

by Circe_the_Hex_Witch



Category: Touhou Project
Genre: Alternate Universe, Blood, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Death, Discussion of racism and police violence in notes, Gen, Gun Violence, Horror, I'm not sure the fic itself is actually very good sorry, Intentional pro-cop propaganda as a jumping off point for media critique, Nudity, Police, Propaganda, Undead, read notes first
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-26
Updated: 2020-06-26
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:54:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24933337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Circe_the_Hex_Witch/pseuds/Circe_the_Hex_Witch
Summary: Another Touhou red light district AU fic. A couple moon rabbit cops investigate a distress call from Gensokyo, only to find themselves dealing with much more than they bargained for.
Comments: 10
Kudos: 1
Collections: Banned Together Bingo 2020





	Whose Hate

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is my Banned Together Bingo fill for "dead cop". It is a rather unorthodox fic I wrote in light of the changes to BTB's rules upon their re-opening. So, I feel I should answer a few questions. Please read these notes to the end before reading the fic.
> 
> Q: What is this?
> 
> A: This is a pro-cop propaganda fic with an explicit, fourth wall-breaking recruitment message.
> 
> Q: Why did you write it? Are you pro-cop?
> 
> A: Absolutely not. In fact, I think the police should be abolished. In a lot of ways, except maybe the rather blunt ending, I think this fic is a rather banal bit of copaganda, and not something I would find it ethical to post on its own without any context. It is only once BTB staff chooses what to do with the fic that it will become interesting, thanks to this new rule:  
> "BTB reserves the right to not accept fills into the collection, including ones that mods believe [...] instruct, provoke, or attempt to justify that the audience join a real-life hate group."  
> This fic clearly and unambiguously instructs the audience to join a real-life group, so there's only one word in that sentence up to interpretation, which is to say "hate". If the police can be argued to be a hate group, then this fic should not be accepted into BTB.
> 
> Q: So you think the cops are a hate group? Why is that?
> 
> A: Glad you asked, hypothetical question asker. It's been known for some time that the police have been infiltrated by white supremacists (a source: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/fbi-white-supremacists-in-law-enforcement ) and, indeed, the overlap between police and racists in the US has been pretty tight all the way back to the days of slave-catching patrols. The police overwhelmingly harass communities of color and particularly black communities. The tear gas and "rubber bullets" come out when people are protesting for their right to exist but not when people are rioting because their favorite team lost (or won? idk) a football game. When a group of heavily armed people harass and kill and overwhelmingly choose targets based on race, there would be simply no controversy over calling them a hate group, were it not for the fact that they have been given authority by the state.
> 
> Q: Care to comment on how this fic in specific functions as propaganda?
> 
> A: Absolutely, yes. For this fic I drew upon the idea that cops are constantly overwhelmed by dangerous criminals and that their use of force, as well as increasing their manpower and militarization, is justified. In fact, this kind of propaganda is used to induct new cops into a mindset of justified violence (source, and also just plain worth a read: https://medium.com/@OfcrACab/confessions-of-a-former-bastard-cop-bb14d17bc759 ). It is for this reason that cops themselves, not "criminals" (here defined as anyone the cops happen to target), are overwhelmingly the perpetrators of violence rather than the victims. The recruitment message at the end is pretty blunt, I'll admit, and I wouldn't have added it if I didn't want to be 100% sure that the fic qualified as "instructing the audience to join the police".
> 
> Q: Wouldn't these notes, themselves, completely alter the intended message of the fic and therefore render it allowable under BTB's rules?
> 
> A: I don't know. That's for BTB staff to decide.
> 
> Q: Any words for BTB staff?
> 
> A: Yes, actually. I hope this doesn't come across badly. I don't mean to be confrontational, but this is an explicitly political event *about* censorship and pushing boundaries. This fill is intended to be challenging and thought-provoking, about what we mean and don't mean when we use words like "hate group". I will not take issue with your decision either to accept or deny this fic, but I don't think you can make that decision without making a political statement about the subject of this fic. I have gone into this trusting that you are prepared to make decisions like that, and I eagerly await whatever you decide.
> 
> One last thing...given the unusual nature of this fic, I'm enabling comment moderation. Please be thoughtful, or your comment will not be appearing on this fic.
> 
> ADDENDUM: I've received feedback on this fic from BTB. According to their evaluation, the meta/notes around a fill is taken into consideration, and since I'm explicitly disavowing the content of the fic, it can't really be considered genuinely instructing anyone to do anything. As of July 2nd, the fic has been found acceptable to include in BTB save for an archive warning (Major Character Death) which I've now added. It is possible that, without these notes, the fill may be evaluated differently; but I can't say for sure.
> 
> I think this is a good place to think on how the information surrounding a piece of fiction changes it. What kind of work would this be without this note? What happens when we take a work and contextualize it instead of censoring it?

Up above the cityscape, two blue-clad figures float above the Gensokyo Red Light District: a tall, wiry figure and a short, stout one, both with prominent white bunny ears. Cops don't visit Gensokyo often (at least in uniform), but an officer sent out a psychic distress signal not far from here, and the two couldn't help but feel compelled to investigate.

"We could really kick over the hornet's nest poking around here." says the short one apprehensively.

"Don't be a fucking coward." the tall one says to her partner. "Never abandon a fellow officer. The chief can deal with the fucking paperwork after we've saved her ass."

The short one shrugs and follows as the tall one sinks down to where the signal was last heard. The flickering neon from the district's main street disappears from view as they dip below the buildings into a dingy side-alley.

"Gotta be around here." The tall one draws her gun, peering around a corner.

"Heeeey!" the short one calls out.

The tall one hastily covers her partner's mouth. "Shut up, moron!" she hisses. "Who knows who'll hear us.

"Mphpmh?" the short one responds.

"Of course I'm not scared." says the tall one irritably, letting go of the short one's mouth. "But there's a difference between bravery and tactlessness. Like you said, we don't want to cause an incident, right? If you'd just think for one fucking second..."

"Oh shit." says the short one.

"Would you just -- " the tall one turns towards the short one, only to stop short when she sees what she's looking at. Blood pooling on the far end of the alley, just barely visible in the gloom. "Fuck." She takes out her flashlight and clicks it on, shining it over the alley as she walks closer. Sure enough, the body of their fellow officer is crumpled on the concrete.

"I knew it. She's dead. Shit, shit shit shit." says the short one.

"Calm down and stop fucking swearing." says the tall one. She kneels by the body to examine it. "Bite marks...on her neck, torso, arms...what in the fuck did this?"

"Hey, uh...do you hear something...moving?" says the short one.

"Moving...?" The tall one only has a moment to sweep the flashlight's beam over the rest of the alley, but the shape is already springing towards them. A nude female figure with several ugly gunshot wounds in her torso, seemingly unaffected by the bullets or profuse bleeding. She's on the short one in moments, pinning her to the ground and ripping at flesh with her teeth.

The tall one fires wildly, and she sees two, three, five bullets hit the figure without seeming to even slow her down. The tall one backs away in terror, unable to look away from the sight of her partner's body being gutted with ravenous teeth.

Suddenly, she feels a sharp object sinking into the side of her neck.

"So sorry." says a sweet voice. "She said prostituting a corpse was highly illegal...said she had no choice but to take me in. What else could I do but order my lovely little Yoshika to take care of her? No hard feelings, pig. Or, well, bunny, I suppose."

Seiga giggles at her little joke as the tall one sinks to the ground, a gurgling sound escaping her throat. Seiga pulls her hair stick free of the cop's neck and wipes the blood off before doing up her hair again. "Come along, Yoshika. I think they're all dead now."

Yoshika looks up from her fresh kill, clambering back up on her feet to follow her mistress as she leaves the alley.

And yet, even as she lays dying, the tall one manages to cough out a few more words. "If only we'd had more backup...whoever can hear this right now...don't let this happen in the real world! You have to join the fight! Don't let the scum on the street run roughshod over justice!" And with that, she expires, bleeding out in the dark alley.


End file.
